Second Crossing

1/26

We're bound for Fernando de Noronha. The wind is fresh to port, and we're flying under royals on a broad reach. We left Mindelo this morning. The island was just beginning to buzz in preparation for carnival. There were impromptu parades daily, and yesterday the parade canvassed the city from just after lunch until sundown, growing each time it passed my little cafe perch, before finally the street was filled and the parade stretched the length of the block. Most of the paraders were kids, banging drums, blowing whistles, dancing and clapping. One little boy on the edge had a toy xylophone, other older boys were dressed in broad grass skirts, and carrying staffs. Their bodies and faces were painted charcoal black, and they seemed to be in charge of the crowd. Every time they passed our cafe they would stall the parade and put on a show until we tossed coins to them, which the little kids scurried after and gathered. They would even hold up traffic and surround the car until the driver either relented his coins, or got so pissed that would cleared the roads and stood silently until the car had gone.

1/28

Today we rigged up the studding sails, huge areas of the lightest canvas stretching off our windward fore yards on booms fitted and lashed into irons. The lower stuns'l boom is an oar from the dory. Paul, our 2nd mate, put it best: "We're in a barque, cruising along, full sail, in the trades, I'm taking sun sights, we're setting stuns'ls, people are fishing on the aloha deck, the sun is shining, this sucks, I want to go home."

1/29

Alan Villiers, one of the more entertaining 20th century maritime writers, and grizzled square rigger captain besides, hated stuns'ls. He said, basically, they were an unnecessary pain in the ass, and could be eliminated with wider yards. Today we got a taste of some of his sour outlook. We were setting the topmast stuns'l when the wind caught it funny and twisted it, impaling it on one of the stuns'l booms where in the wind it continued to flog and thrash before it was soon nearly shredded.

We ran aloft and shipped the boom in as far as we could. I shuffled out on the yard arm and had to cut the sail clear so we could lower it back to deck. 

Yesterday, while we were test-setting them, the topmast stuns'l yard gashed our fore upper tops'l, which we quickly sent down and bent on a replacement. Buddy is getting his work cut out for him. Even literally, I suppose.

1/30

My computer died today. 

1/31

Six degrees north of the equator. Funny grins keep popping up on people's faces.

2/2

We've had luxurious sailing this whole passage so far. Buddy finished repairing the topmast stuns'l, and we reset it today. We're making about five knots, stuns'ls set, in the gentle equatorial winds. Just a couple hundred miles north of the line or so. Should be there soon.

2/5

Crossed the line. Got my shellback yesterday.

2/6

We've passed through the inter-tropical convergence zone, aka the doldrums, aka the horse latitudes, and are now back in the trades, this time from the South East. Full sail set and trimmed close hauled. The helmsman is steering by the wind. 

We had to strike sail a couple times and push ahead with the main engine, but we were becalmed completely only once, and then not for very long. Our schedule dictated the motoring more than anything else. Captain says these SE trades are his favorite, some of the sweetest sailing you'll ever see. They certainly have been sweet.

A day or so out from Fernando de Noronha. Nadja will be signing off there and heading to the barque Europa, where she worked last winter, for a big voyage eastwards from Cape Horn to the Cape of Good Hope, stopping at Elephant Island, Antarctica, and South Georgia Island -- all of the great Shackleton's old haunts -- along the way. Lucky girl. We will miss her a lot. She's like a sister to me.

2/9

We left Fernando de Noronha yesterday. The customs people turned out to be twits, and they changed the way they enforce their immigration policy for the island regarding vessels in transit. We did manage to get a few hours to tour the island, which was necklaced with gorgeous beaches, and had a great big volcanic obelisk jutting up from the trees that resembled the Easter Island face carvings, as if Jim Henson had helped form it. I half expected the giant face to open up and start singing Harry Belafonte songs as we approached our anchorage, but I don't do drugs. 

Our visit was cut short when the officials reneged on our clear-in, and we had to round everybody up. So it goes. Onward to the Caribbean. What are three days at one tropical island, when we're about to spend two months visiting a bunch of others anyways?

We're 2000 miles from Grenada, with the promise of fair winds and fair currents nearly the whole way.

I'm back in the 4-8 watch. Sunrises, sunsets, and deckwash every day. This morning the full moon, lit up like radioactive parmesan, set into a nest of periwinkle clouds, while behind us the sun rose and cast an golden-pink glow on everything. Another day at the office. 

2/11

A busy watch this morning. Woke up to a squall pouring rain and blowing fresh and we shortened sail the instant we were on deck. I barely had on my pants before the mate sent me running aloft to stow the flogging, sodden fore royal. The squall blew itself out an hour later at first light our watch loosed and set all the sail again. A good morning.

2/16

Squally weather without much break ever since we left Fernando de Noronha.

The view from my porthole. You can see the squall on the horizon, and the beginning of a sunset just tinting the sky.

2/19

Today is my two year Picton Castle birthday. This date, 2007, I joined the ship in Dominica with no clue of what I was getting into, and even less of the notion that, two years and a few miles later, I'd still be here. 

2/22

Arrived today in Carriacou, a small island just north of Grenada. Captain announced two days ago that our destination had changed, and our slight detour here allows us to get the ship shiny for our grand entrance into Grenada. As luck would have it, Carriacou just happens to be in the throes of Carnival. With plenty of work to do and Carnival, all after a spectacular passage at sea, nobody will be bored, I think. 

Plus, a few beloved members of our crew depart from here. Gary, our doctor, heads back to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Weronika heads back to school after spending her Christmas holiday with us, and Rich is off too, heading back to the States as well.